Contributed by Jason Andrew / Jenny Snider is a storyteller. The content and form of her art come from a variety of sources: history, popular culture, politics, and art itself in the form of grid-based abstraction representing natural and mechanical forms. But singularly, she is interested in “describing the experience of the life I know and … read more… “Jenny Snider: Mutiny, rebellion, the experience of life”
Nora Griffin hot take
Contributed by Sharon Butler / In Nora Griffin’s lively new paintings at Fierman, aesthetic tropes from eighties graphics – the stepped rule, the squiggle, artful spatter, bold pastel color – meet calculated painterly excess. She expands on the composition-cover patterns of previous work with great brio, resuscitating action painting and combining it with stream-of-consciousness content. We … read more… “Nora Griffin hot take”
Brian Dupont and Rachael Nevins: Suffering for something beautiful
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Brian Dupont’s paintings, on view at Adah Rose Gallery in Bethesda, Maryland, through December 31, are uniquely transfixing for several reasons. One is their lean, industrial look – they’re oil on metal. Another is the sense, owing to the stenciled letters and numbers present, that they reveal something randomly profound in the workaday. But … read more… “Brian Dupont and Rachael Nevins: Suffering for something beautiful”
The Great War and Modernism
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / The First World War – known as the Great War before it became necessary to number them – is one of history’s most celebrated lessons on two subjects in particular: how ominously easily it can be for a major war to arise, and the senseless cruelty and calamity of armed … read more… “The Great War and Modernism”
Two Coats Selected Gallery Guide: November 2018
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Update (November 11): I don’t know about you, but I feel a tremendous burden has been lifted thanks to the Beautiful Blue Wave on Tuesday. Thanks for voting, thanks for canvasing, and special thanks to readers in NY-19 and throughout New Jersey who booted the GOP out of office. Hello … read more… “Two Coats Selected Gallery Guide: November 2018”
Assembled but not resembling, at Patricia Sweetow
Contributed by Robin Hill / The works in “Assembled,” an absorbing three-person exhibition featuring Julia Couzens, Helen O’Leary, and Cornelia Schulz at Patricia Sweetow Gallery in San Francisco, are defiantly not about anything but are, rather, of many things (of fiber, wood, paint, wire, canvas), and have been realized through many actions (binding, wrapping, stuffing, leaning, interlocking, slathering, skimming, stitching, gluing). The works ask … read more… “Assembled but not resembling, at Patricia Sweetow”
Art and Film: Catherine Weldon and Sitting Bull
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / Trump’s reactionary public policy, which has institutionalized contempt for the advances in social justice forged in the United States over the past 150 years, has produced pervasive discontent. Anger about his racism, misogyny, and homophobia is manifesting itself through art in different ways. In tone, resistance ranges from the simmering observations of Kerry … read more… “Art and Film: Catherine Weldon and Sitting Bull”
Two Coats Selected Gallery Guide / October 2018 (updated)
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Here is the updated list of October (mostly painting) shows that I promised earlier this month. NOTE: Galleries who would like their exhibitions considered for inclusion in the next Two Coats Selected Gallery Guide should send a note to ExhibitionsatTCOP@gmail.com. Please include a few jpegs and exhibition info (Preferred format: name of gallery/ title … read more… “Two Coats Selected Gallery Guide / October 2018 (updated)”
Elena Sisto: A new kind of freedom
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Elena Sisto’s new paintings, on view at Bookstein Projects through October 27, focus smartly on hair. Lively thick brushstrokes snake around diminutive, brightly colored faces, conjuring the stylized coifs of Gustav Klimt and the Vienna Secession. For Klimt, who was working in Vienna when Freud began hypothesizing about the power of … read more… “Elena Sisto: A new kind of freedom”
Lindsay Walt: Infinite space, logical form, and inner contemplation
Contributed by Lilly Hern-Fondation / In her new paintings and works on paper, Lindsay Walt works with geometric structures that appear as though they have materialized out of thin air. In compositions that balance atmosphere and striation, repetition and variation, structured order and dissolution, she moves towards a manipulated immateriality rendered in blue. In her 2017 series of … read more… “Lindsay Walt: Infinite space, logical form, and inner contemplation”